Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.
Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages.
Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.
About this roleAs an iOS Engineer on Speak’s engineering team, you will be responsible for a variety of areas including improving how we serve our content, run A/B tests on monetization features, and supporting the launching of new markets and new languages. You will collaborate closely with backend engineers and our partners in Product and Design. You’ll be responsible for shipping product features to millions of users.
What you'll be doingImprove “freemium” experience to increase conversions
Support the launching of new markets and new languages
Implement various paywall tests, such as pricing, design changes, delayed paywalls, discounted offers, etc.
Improve our speech-to-text system
Improve our audio and video streaming systems
5+ years of industry experience working as a Mobile Engineer, preferably in a fast-paced startup environment
bonus: worked on an app that has been used by 1M users
Proficiency in Swift, with a strong understanding of common mobile architectures including MVC/MVVM
bonus: Experience in SwiftUI
bonus: Experience in mobile streaming technologies (websockets, ll-hls)
Reactive programming(RX Java, etc)
Knowledgable in mobile build practices(eg jenkins, bitrise)
Knowledgable in Apple StoreKit/RevenueCat
Excellent problem-solving and communication skills, and the ability to work independently or as part of a team
Coach and mentor other engineers
Strong product sense: ability to think broadly/cross-functionally about product experiences
San Francisco, CA
Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.
Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.
Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.
Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.
Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.
Top Skills
What We Do
Speak is a language learning app that sets users on the path to fluency with the world’s most advanced AI tutor. Built on the core learning philosophy of getting users speaking out loud as much as possible, Speak's AI language-learning experience encourages dynamic two-way dialogue through personalized content and real-time speech recognition.
Speak was founded by Connor Zwick and Andrew Hsu in 2016 to democratize access to high quality language education through AI. Backed by Y Combinator, Open AI, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Matrix Partners and more, Speak is a series B startup with a global presence and offices in San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, and Ljubljana.
Featured by Apple as the ‘App of the Day’ and ‘Best New App’, Speak is hiring across the globe. Come join us as we teach the next billion people English and reinvent the way the world learns, staring with language
